


the man in the desert

by ruinga



Category: Final Fantasy XIII Series, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: F/F, Gen, Lightning Returns Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 16:33:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1394584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruinga/pseuds/ruinga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts and ends with them. A study of Fang in the world's last thirteen years, in thirteen short parts. Spoilers up to the end of Lightning Returns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the man in the desert

She wakes up and a girl with blue eyes is staring at her, expectant and impatient.

"Rise and shine, sleepyhead!" The voice is bright and too chipper to be anyone she recognizes, too _young_ , and she finds herself disappointed. Fang blinks slow and the rest of the girl comes into focus. She's half skipping around Vanille, talking a mile a minute, but there's something odd about her. Fang notes it straight away. 

"Serah?" She asks, more to herself than anyone else. But that wasn't right either. Her eyes. There was something about those eyes.

She would have thought on it more, but then Vanille was reeling, teetering over so suddenly that Fang barely had time to catch her before she fell.

In the days and weeks afterward, this sickness of Vanille's would become the single thought that Fang's mind wrapped itself around, but much later on the thought of the girl — Lumina — would come, and Fang would remember what she'd forgotten.

The girl's eyes. Those were Lightning's eyes.

* * *

They'd seen Snow a little after they'd awakened, and only briefly. The meeting had been quiet, withdrawn and missing details. Fang thought she was seeing him through a gauzy sort of haze. He smiled, but it was drawn tight at the edges. He hugged her, and Vanille too, but his back was too straight and his shoulders were too heavy. She was reminded of a cliff worn away by the sea. That's what Snow was. Eroded.

The weight of Serah's loss hung in the air between them. Fang felt responsible for it. How many times had she killed that girl? First with Anima, then Serah had ran headfirst into saving them from the pillar holding Cocoon aloft. And what did any of them have to show for it? Lightning gone, Hope gone, and Sazh and Snow wandering the dying world like dead men themselves. Vanille hearing the screams of lost souls until it gutted all the light and warmth out of her. Fang was the only one that had gotten out of this unscathed, and she was the one that deserved it the least. 

"I'll come back to visit," he said at the end, and Fang thought that might have been the first lie she'd ever heard him tell.

"I'm worried about him," Vanille whispered to her later in the dark quiet of their room, her voice soft and frightened.

"I'm more worried about you," Fang whispered back, and kissed her. It was a selfish thing to say, but she had never been one to mince words.

* * *

"Please." She's begging, her voice rubbed raw. She cups Vanille's face in her hands and thumbs away the tears she sees forming. Fang never begs. She makes demands, she asks or barrels ahead, but today she is begging. She'd rest at Vanille's heels and roll over like a dog if that would move her any. "Please, Vanille. I'll take care of you. You know that."

But Vanille just smiles, shakes her head. She used to do things with her whole body, until every little movement was like a dance, but even this is muted now. Out of everything they've been through since waking, and every awful vision they watched while dreaming, this is the saddest thing Fang has ever seen.

"You go," she says, "If you need to."

Fang feels her throat go tight, feels her expression collapse in on itself with grief. But she buries her head in the crook of Vanille's neck so that she won't have to see it. A moment passes, and then Vanille is stroking her hair.

"I'll come back," she mumbles, finally.

"Alright." Vanille shifts until Fang can rest her head in her lap. "I'll wait for you."

They stay like that until Fang falls asleep.

* * *

" _Wow._ I never thought I'd see the day! I figured you'd stick it out. But here you are, running away with your tail between your legs. Too bad." Lumina's waiting for her, balancing precariously on the hour hand of the cathedral clock. She's so high up that Fang has to strain her eyes to see her.

The first thing she says is, "You're going to wake the holy cavalry if you keep that up."

There's a flash of white light, and then Lumina is beside her, hands on her arm and swinging back and forth. Fang allows it, if reluctantly. She's long since learned that it did little good to shove the girl away. It upset Vanille when she was too rough on the little brat anyway, and Fang was oddly fond of her, besides. She'd been there when they woke up, and had given Vanille a little joy, here and there. She owed her for that.

"Are you really leaving?" Lumina stares up at her, eyes wide. For once, this behavior strikes Fang as genuinely curious.

"What's it look like?"

"Without her? That's pretty low. I thought you—"

"I'm doing this for her." Fang snatches her arm away. "Now leave off, you little demon. It's past your bedtime."

Lumina gives that some thought. Then she smiles, wide and devious. " _Oh,_ I get it. I know what you're up to."

"You usually do."

Lumina moves to go, but then she throws over her shoulder,

"Good luck."

Fang laughs. "Yeah, thanks. I'm gonna need it. You keep an eye on Vanille, you hear—"

She stops when she realizes she is talking to nothing but empty air.

* * *

The desert sand peeled her face dry at first, pulled moisture out of her eyes and made them bloodshot and stinging. The sun beat down hot and burning, relentless, and the winds that picked up brought nothing but more sand to cut into the soft parts of her. It was the hell Sazh Katzroy and the others had once imagined Gran Pulse to be. This is the real hell, the fire and brimstone, where she should have been instead of cradled safely in crystal dreams. The first day, week, month, year, she feels the ache of Vanille's loss like one might feel after losing a limb: a throbbing, constant pain. A weight that should be there but wasn't.

But then she thinks: _the desert is no place for Vanille. There aren't any flowers here,_ and presses on. She has to find the clavis, and so she pushes the pain deep down, the way she always does. Tries not to think of how Vanille must feel, so isolated. Treated as some novel and fascinating thing, an idol to be worshiped, and not like a girl better suited to open skies and bird song. Tries not to think of her alone and waiting, lulled to restless sleep by the screams of the dead.

The searching becomes her singular obsession. She'll find it if it takes every day of the last thirteen years they have left. She'll find it if it kills her. She'll find it even after, once the Chaos has spread over everything, and the world has collapsed among wailing and shadows. She has to. Not doing it would be as ludicrous as not breathing.

* * *

She meets Adonis proper after she beats him in a bar fight. It's not really fair, in retrospect. She should have at least been a little drunk. He might've had a fighting chance. He's bleeding from the nose and has the beginning of a black eye when he manages to stand up. He grins at her through bloody teeth.

"Damn," he laughs, impressed, and it makes her laugh too. It surprises her. She feels like she hasn't laughed in years. 

Then he asks, "You looking for a job? Me and the boys do a little treasure hunting..."

"I know. That's what I came over to ask about before you thought it'd be a brilliant idea to cop a feel. I'll join your little group, but I've got one exception."

"Yeah?"

"I'll take point," she says at first, but the thought brings a memory that stings more than she'd been thinking it would (Lightning's back and a flash of pale pink hair, her eyes serious and focused), and she corrects herself. "You make me the leader. I'll treat you and yours right, don't you worry."

"You're one hell of a lady." He laughs again though, and holds out his hand. "You've got a deal, boss. I'm Adonis. It's a pleasure."

Her handshake is firm, and the moment it's over she claps him on the shoulder, as if to say, _no hard feelings._

"Pleasure's all mine. I'm Fang. Oerba Yun Fang."

* * *

They find it. It takes ages of searching, but they all find it. Fang kisses Adonis on the mouth when he tells her the news, then she picks him up and spins him like they're starcrossed lovers in a movie. The others laugh, and she does too. She doesn't even care that the damn thing is closed off to the lot of them, all that matters is it's _found_ , and she'll kill whoever tries to get close to it with her bare hands.

As a gift, she treats them all to drinks, and regales them with old stories of old worlds until it gets dark and the stars blink in, cold and distant. Most of all, she talks about Vanille. Her words make them all go soft with the contemplative sadness that only occurs when drunk. She sees a shopkeeper wipe at his eyes, and a woman who passes by gently pats her shoulder.

"Let's give her a toast!" Adonis' voice is loud and cheerfully slurred, the sound a burst close to Fang's ear. "Let's make it loud enough to hear it in Luxerion!"

They give Vanille a rowdy toast. The thieves and drunks and travelers, even that odd boy, Elmer. All of them. The sound rises up into the desert air, high above the stars.

She hopes Vanille can hear it.

* * *

"There's a woman poking around, boss. Think she might be part of the Order."

Adonis looks concerned, but Fang barely glances up. She's fiddling with an old watch Elmer found, one with thirteen numbers. It barely works, and doesn't tell the dying world's time, but she's fond of it, this old, broken thing. If it was the Order poking around, she'd take care of it herself. None of them had ever gotten out of this hell alive. "That so? What's she look like?"

"Good-looking. Not as much as you, of course," he amends.

"'Course not."

"But good-looking. Tall, blue eyes, carries a mean-looking weapon and a shield. Damndest thing, though. She has pink hair."

Fang sets the watch down. She doesn't look up, but her shoulders hunch suddenly. "That so? Pink hair, huh..."

"That's right."

"You said she carries a sword? Run her through the ringer for me, would you? If she makes her way out, you tell her to come to me."

* * *

Lightning's changed. Hope too.

The both of them are like machines. Like puppets, dancing on a string. Light goes through the motions alright, and if Fang didn't know her as well she'd probably fall for it, this whole song and dance, but she knows Lightning. Remembers a woman larger than life. Someone who had the spine to knock some sense into her when they'd first met, but had sat patiently and watched as Vanille worked her through splinting a wild chocobo's broken wing. Her voice had been soft and hesitant, her movements awkward. Gentle. _Is this alright?_ Lightning had asked, and Vanille had laughed until it pulled a smile out of Light, too.

_It's fine! You're doing great!_

Lightning who had taken her hand and stared down Bahamut with her. This one, she looked like her and sounded like her, but...

"She's a fake, you know," Lumina is waiting for her back in Ruffian when Lightning leaves on a Luxerion errand, sitting in her office. The chair is too high for her; her legs swing back and forth. "The both of them are. You've noticed it, right? I'd be careful, if I were you. Who knows what the savior will do, if you try to break the clavis in front of her?"

"Light won't do a thing. If she knows what it's for and what I'm after, she won't let this happen."

"You trust her?" Lumina doesn't sound dubious so much as amused. It irritates Fang, not for the first time. She felt like part of a big experiment, a rat running circles in a cage.

"Of course," she finally answers.

"And what happens to Vanille if you're wrong?"

She has no answer to that, but there's no need. Lumina blinks away before she can voice it.

* * *

She and Lumina were wrong in the end, but there's no time to apologize for it. She'll do it later, once this is all over. She'll treat the savior to a drink, she'll say sorry until she can't say it anymore. _Sorry for getting you tied up in this,_ she'll start, and then she knows she won't be able to stop. _I'm sorry about Anima. I'm sorry I started it all. I'm so sorry about Serah. I think about it every day, you know. I've thought about it for months, for years and centuries. I only met her once, but she was a good girl. Softer than you for sure, but she had your backbone. I hope we get her back._

_I'll pay you back if it's the last thing I do. You helped me and Vanille. You really did save us both._

In a train barreling forward to Luxerion, Fang feels tears coming. She turns her face toward the window until she feels nothing at all.

There was no time for that. She had a job to do, her and the savior both.

* * *

The Ark is different from what she imagined. It's all gray and cold, empty. The hollow world of Bhunivelze hangs above, suspended in a canopy of sky. Lights hum. The great tree waits, still and silent. But Fang isn't afraid. There are so many souls here, waiting. Holding their breaths. For once, they are mercifully quiet. Next to her, Vanille sighs, heavy and deep, like she's been carrying a weight a long, long time, and can finally let it go. A tear slowly traces down her cheek.

Then she breaks the silence, takes Fang's hand. "Follow me."

She doesn't even need to ask. Fang would follow her into hell without a word. Following her into heaven was nothing, by comparison.

* * *

They're all hugging one another close, tucked into each other. A family again. Snow's stubble scratches against her cheek; she feels Dajh hugging at her waist. Vanille's hand is clasped tightly in her own. Lightning's speaking, she thinks, but she only catches the end of it.

_We'll all see each other soon._

She believes it. They all say as much, one after the other, though not in words anyone else can hear. _You're the boss,_ she thinks, feeling heavy. She thinks she'll fall into another dream again, one gentler and shorter than the other ones had been. _We'll let you take point._

She hears laughter: thick and teary, bright and unburdened. Then there is light, so much of it, and at last the sleeping. The dreaming.

* * *

When she awakens, it's to sunshine and birds singing. Vanille is smiling down at her, tucked in close against the curve of her arm. She strokes her cheek and says,

"Rise and shine, sleepyhead."

They are surrounded by flowers, fields of them as far as the eye can see. There are so many of them that Fang isn't sure she'll find the path to leave. But that's alright. Maybe this world is one full of flowers, and she can't bring herself to complain about that.

Fang stands to her feet. "I'm up, I'm up. Now, you and me need to get going. I owe a lady a drink."

**Author's Note:**

> Just wrote this because I'm still in mourning over FFXIII being over and I wanted to write a little tribute to one of my favorite characters from the series. I'll miss all of them a ton, but that's what fanfic is for! Title is pulled from a composition by Yoko Kanno.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


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